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Michael Voepel, ESPN Senior WriterSep 26, 2024, 10:26 PM ET
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- Michael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.
The Chicago Sky fired head coach Teresa Weatherspoon after just one season with the team, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday night, citing multiple league sources.
Sky rookie star Angel Reese appeared to confirm the news on social media, saying she was “heartbroken.”
Weatherspoon was hired Oct. 12 and led the Sky to a 13-27 record. Chicago stayed in playoff position for much of the second half of the season despite struggling to a 3-13 record after the Olympic break. Ultimately, losing Reese to a wrist injury Sept. 7 was too much to overcome.
Reese had a strong season, setting a WNBA record with 15 consecutive double-doubles. Reese, the No. 7 draft pick out of LSU, averaged 13.6 points and 13.1 rebounds in 34 games. She thanked Weatherspoon in an emotional post on X on Thursday night.
“I’m literally lost for words knowing what this woman meant to me in such a pivotal point in my life,” Reese wrote. “She was the only person that believed in me. The one that trusted me. Many don’t even know what it’s like to be a black women in sports when nobody believes in you. You had a tough job. All the crazy circumstances that we went through this year & when your back was against the wall, you always believed.
“I came to Chicago because of YOU. You were an unsung hero in my life. We built a relationship in a short amount of time that will last forever.”
Weatherspoon played in the WNBA from 1997, the league’s inaugural year, to 2004, with seven seasons in New York and one in Los Angeles. She also has coached at the college level, at her alma mater, Louisiana Tech, and in the NBA with the New Orleans Pelicans.
The Sky won their only WNBA title in 2021, but no longer have key players from then such as Candace Parker, Kahleah Copper and Courtney Vandersloot. James Wade, who had been the Sky’s coach and general manager since 2019, stepped down after 16 games last season to take an assistant’s job with the Toronto Raptors. Emre Vatansever filled in as the interim head coach the rest of the season.
Then last October, Weatherspoon and Jeff Pagliocca were hired as coach and GM, respectively, replacing the dual role Wade had.
Weatherspoon is the second WNBA coach to be fired since the end of the regular season, along with Curt Miller, whom the Los Angeles Sparks announced was out as coach on Tuesday after just two seasons.
